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Tuesday, January 26, 2010

REMEMBER JAMES O'KEEFE, THE GUY WHO DID THE ACORN STING?

Well he's been arrested for breaking into US Senator Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) office to commit a felony: to wiretap her phones. Breaking the law! And this is the guy who tried to bring down ACORN for BREAKING THE LAW?

UPDATE BELOW:

Imagine the outrage--how apoplectic the jerks on FAUX NEWS would be had Michael Moore done this to a Republican senator?

Fox News has been one of the biggest supporters of James O’Keefe, who is infamous for dressing up as a pimp and videotaping ACORN staffers offering to help the supposed pimp and his prostitutes secure funding for a brothel. The network constantly replayed coverage from his operation. In September, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace named O’Keefe his “Power Player of the Week,” calling him an “undercover reporter” and a “fascinating character.”

Yesterday, the FBI arrested O’Keefe and three others — “charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony” — saying that they were plotting to wiretap Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office (D-LA). One of the other men, Robert Flanagan, is the son of William Flanagan, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana. Two of the men “dressed as telephone company employees” and showed up to Landrieu’s New Orleans office, saying they had to “fix phone problems.” O’Keefe was already there and was “positioning his cell phone in his hand to videotape the operation”:

.After being asked, the staffer gave Basel access to the main phone at the reception desk. The staffer told investigators that Basel manipulated the handset. He also tried to call the main office phone using his cell phone, and said the main line wasn’t working. Flanagan did the same.They then told the staffer they needed to perform repair work on the main phone system and asked where the telephone closet was located. The staffer showed the men to the main General Services Administration office on the 10th floor, and both went in. There, a GSA employee asked for the men’s credentials, after which they stated they left them in their vehicle. The U.S. Marshal’s Service apprehended all four men shortly thereafter.

Fox News aired a report about the arrests shortly after the news broke. However, reporter Tim Vaughn tried to downplay the news:..VAUGHN: [It's a] very weird story that probably needs a lot of context and a lot of looking into, which is what we’re going to do here. I just wanted to get it on the record with it right now.

.SHEP SMITH: So, they’re saying basically, they’re in there — It sounds as if what they’re saying is, they’re looking for some ACORN hanky panky and they try to tap into Mary Landrieu’s telephone to get it.

VAUGHN: That could be one way of looking at it, yes.

Ironically, at the end of the Power Player segment in September, Wallace said, “O’Keefe says he wants to do more undercover films, and he has some targets in mind. He says his friends always tell him the next sting will never work.” “I disagree with them,” replied O’Keefe. “I think that I’ll come up with a new strategy and I’ll get them to say yes.” Looks like O’Keefe’s friends were right.

Update Andrew Breitbart's site Big Government, which helped make O'Keefe a star and pays him to be a contributor, claims that it had no knowledge of what the four individuals were up to. Michelle Malkin writes, "They are, of course, presumed innocent until proven guilty. But for now, let it be a lesson to aspiring young conservatives interested in investigative journalism: 'Know your limits. Know the law. Don’t get carried away. And don’t become what you are targeting.'" Hot Air blogger Ed Morrissey said, "Journalists don't tap phones, and if that's what he tried, he's an idiot."

Update The AP reports that a magistrate "set bond at $10,000 each after they made their initial court appearances wearing red prison jumpsuits. None of the defendants commented on the allegations in court. 'It was poor judgment,' Robert Flanagan's lawyer, Garrison Jordan, said in a brief interview outside the courthouse. 'I don't think there was any intent or motive to commit a crime."

Oh no, no. Of course not.

They haven't been tried yet, but it looks like the guys who tried to smear and bring down ACORN aren't above engaging in criminal activities. These clowns apparently believe that giving advice on breaking the law is worse than actually breaking the law.

"Conservative politicians and right-wing media have long glorified O’Keefe, who bragged on his Twitter account that his accomplishment for the year of 2009 was getting ACORN defunded by Congress. Last month, a federal judge ruled that Congress’s singling out of ACORN for defunding was unconstitutional, successfully ending any ban on funding to the organization."

It shows that the concept of 'Investigative Journalism' was actually just a front to cover up the fact that James O'Keefe is nothing more than a crook hell bent on making a point regardless of the law...

It also means that all those lawsuits that ACORN has started probably are now going to get to be very serious...

How far will you and your kind go to destroy democracy?

We now know you will break the law....and its fun to watch as all the big name mouthpieces run as far as they can as fast as they can from James O'Keefe now that he has been caught...

Just a few months ago he was being feted as a freedom fighter...

At best he was nothing but a prankster...at worst it looks like he could end up being a convicted felon...

Can't wait to see how a couple of white boys hold out in jail with a bunch of ACCORN supporters and Black Panther members...

I am sure they will be singing "RESPECT" real fast and in a very high pitch...

Tao,your Nissan sounds like my old VW.A good investment that has paid off for the past 30+ years. People had been telling me for years I should get rid of that old thing. The car is probably tired of this old thing driving it around all these years!

Tao: Some can live on the minimum wage, and some can't. So, do you end up paying everyone the same high amount? The (1) guy or gal living frugally just out of college getting the $150,000 a year amount arbitrarily made up for a (2) family of 4?

And the (3) family of 6 or 7.... well that $150,000 probably isn't enough.

Then it becomes clear that the "living wage" amounts are one-size-fits-few?

For the (1) situation, it is government forcing business to be a welfare agency, mostly giving out unearned money to someone. For (3), it's not enough to live on.

Libhom: You'd be injecting race into a situation where it didn't exist (like Limbaugh's outrageous comments about Obama and Haiti). However, that's not quite true, as Tolljaw had already played the race card here.

I mean low wages creates so much economic growth and thus welfare aka the living wage, causes economic growth to stop.

I mean look at China and India...low wages no regulations and look at how their economies are growing!!!

We could have growth like that if we did away with the minimum wage!

Oh, but then you would have to find people with enough money to consume what we would produce....

I mean the only reason China is willing to buy all our bonds is because our consumerism is driving their growth!

What kind of growth would China and India enjoy if all of the sudden we quit buying?

Well, we have quit buying because the credit that we were using to maintain a standard of living that our wages could no longer justify has disappeared.

Either restore the credit, pay real wages, or accept the fact that the economic growth that we enjoyed over the last decade is gone forever....

As folks are making less than what they did in 1997 we will have to fall below that level of economic activity before we can even think about growing.

If you actually look at it free trade is nothing more than welfare for corporations....

Dell made computers in the United States then they move to Ireland to capture lower wages now they are moving to Eastern Europe to capture even lower wages....

Since they left manufacturing in the United States they have struggled to remain profitable and successful...

Kind of makes you wonder if focussing on labor costs and trying to capture the lowest costs that you can to remain profitable for shareholders isn't some sort of kiss of death for a company.

Drug companies have moved manufacturing off shore and yet they use the FDA to limit Americans from purchasing cheaper drugs overseas and they use patent protection to protect themselves from generic drug companies...

Then they talk the government into proposing a prescription drug program where they sell the government drugs but with no competitive pricing...

Talk about UNEARNED money....

How about all of those fancy accounting tricks to avoid paying taxes....

Talk about UNEARNED money....

Wonder exactly how successful Ford would have been if he had not had the brillant idea of finding a way to pay his employees enough to allow them to buy Ford cars....

What if Ford had just stuck to the concept of building cars that only the rich could afford....

Consumers make up two thirds of all economic activity and yet everyone wants to concern themselves with FREEING corporations to make a profit....

But if consumers are not buying then there is not profit to be made, except through gifts from the government....

Nice laundry list of government corruption. But where does that fit into small businesses who become welfare agencies with unearned mandates when they are forced to give away money on top of earned wages.... to people only some of which are poor? In many cases, this is really welfare for the rich.

Unearned, that is exactly it. Any money that a business is forced to give to a worker above what the worker actually earned.

My first reaction to O’Keefe’s arrest was “oh how stupid of him.” Upon further reflection, I have changed my mind. I think O’Keefe is a patriot and was probably onto something that We, The People should know about involving Sen. Landrieu.

Since the media no longer investigates corruption among the liberal elite, the burden falls to brave souls like O’Keefe.

The American Left praises and honors such real criminals and murderers as Castro, Che, Mao and Mumia Abu Jamal. Surely I’m not going to throw O’Keefe under the bus until I know all of the facts. And if he was in the pursuit of truth, then I think his actions were justified.

'Although I admire O'Keefe some for exposing ACORN as a child-rape procurement ring..'

Right.

As is so often the case some of our conservative friends continue their all-out assault on the English language and on plain old common sense. Thus we are left with a tortured definitions of 'admire' and 'child-rape'.

Presumably typed with a straight face the post is astonishing in its wrong-headed simplicity. ACORN reduced to an utter fantasy.

Arthur: Check the CNN article. Not Fox, CNN. No quotes needed around child rape. That's common sense and an accurate use of the language. No matter how you try to spin it. Nothing "low" about it: just sticking to the facts.

Our 'conservative' & 'libertarian' friends so often stumble on the field of equivalence.

Oh well such is to be expected in a world where Van Jones is considered no different than a mass murderer.

The CNN link doesn't prove ACORN is a child-rape procurement ring (there's a tortured phrase) anymore than (picked one of an endless list of examples) the Randy Cunningham episode 'proves' the GOP has a party plank soliciting prostitutes.

Arthur: "Oh well such is to be expected in a world where Van Jones is considered no different than a mass murderer."

No. He's just a nutjob who claimed the 1st or 2nd worst mass-murderer in all history as a hero. Like with David Duke, neither actually killed anyone, but both show extremely poor judgement, to say the least. Jones is history, anyway. When our President found out about him, he sacked him.

By any reasonable metric President Obama is a slightly to the right of center Democrat. A corporatist. His health care initiatives are more conservative than Nixon's and his commitment to American empire should gladden the hearts of American exceptionalism everywhere. I think it's useful to take a slightly longer view of the political spectrum and not depend, as far too many do, on talk radio, CNN and other mass media outlets to define a history they seem completely ignorant of.

If Van Jones is to be considered a enthusiast for Maoist mass murder then certainly any Constitutional 'originalist' could be considered, using the same argument, to be pro-slavery.

Arthur: Your reasonable metric is from the strong/hard left (by your own specific examples of policies) not the center. But enough of that... Obama's Obama, and we can probably agree to agree at least that he is no extremist, and somewhere around the center if you look at the whole wide political spectrum.

"If Van Jones is to be considered a enthusiast for Maoist mass murder then certainly any Constitutional 'originalist' could be considered, using the same argument, to be pro-slavery."

Your "originalist" is rejecting a chunk of the existing Constitution, at least including the amendment that ended slavery. Well, I'd probably consider someone who flat out tosses out so many important parts of the Constitution (ending slavery, entire bill of rights, women's vote) to be unqualified for any high position of authority, too. Fit to scrub toilets alongside Jones.

Based on the cleverness of James and his legal team I think he planned this too the letter of the law and will reveal something regarding misdeeds. Mizz Landrieu is a Louisiana politician…..not a stretch to imagine.

Had he been a Black Panther this would not be of interest to Eric Holder.

You have some white kid show up at your office dressed like a black guy from a 70's movie and he asks for assistance and information to set up a prostitution ring using kids...

So, a couple of ladies, neither of which are attorneys or CPA's, rattle on and on....

Lets see, if they knew anything about what they were talking about do you really believe they would be working in the office of a not for profit?

If there was any EVIDENCE that ACORN was in any way involved in child rape then there would have been a criminal investigation...

They had nothing to do with child rape and you know it....

It was all media hyped for a 'gotcha moment' and all of little James efforts were only used to spin crap and discredit an organization that represents PEOPLE (you know the ones you cannot stand) and cause the President embarrassment...

Now you and your buddies want us to believe that James has some damning evidence that the government arrested him to keep him from sharing...

Keep dreaming and keep believing...I am sure that you think Watergate was for the good of the country...

"I think he planned this too the letter of the law and will reveal something regarding misdeeds"

Breaking and entering a US Senator's office is NOT planning to the "letter of the law." It's a felony. On federal property. O'Keefe won't be able to reveal anything, since he got nothing but handcuff and a frog march.

It is amazing to read the conservatives falling over themselves to excuse O'Keefe's behavior.

"Josh Marshall is trying to make sense of the bizarre O'Keefe story at the top of Memeorandum this morning:

[F]or the moment, as crazy as it may seem, I'm working on the assumption that O'Keefe really thought he'd get away with a major felony if he got recordings that would sound good enough on Fox and Drudge. Indeed, his very limited public statements still suggest he's thinking in terms of a justification defense. I still have a hard time believing that myself. But it's the only explanation I can square with the facts as we currently know them.

Conservatives have become used to the idea that their ideology allows them to break the law. Because their ideology is above the law. Just ask Cheney."

I heard today that O’Keefe wanted to “investigate” and prove that Landrieu’s office wasn’t answering the telephone. It’s been alleged that she’s avoiding calls from her constituents since the “Louisiana Purchase”.

Even IF that’s the truth it still doesn’t excuse O’Keefe’s actions. Wire-tapping, or whatever he was doing, in a Federal building is a felony. It just makes me wonder if he let all his “fame and glory” go to his head and now thinks he's "untouchable". That’s too bad. He’s a young kid and this could ruin his life. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Pamela: Right. You don't see us excusing him from any illegal actions.

Truth: I did not denigrate American workers. After all, so much "outsourcing" is really insourcing: workers inside the US doing a better job and earning jobs that other American workers don't do as well (i.e. rustbelt jobs moving to the South).

Beyond that, I don't have any racial or other bias against Honduran or other workers as compared to those in the US. Looking at things without racial or nationalistic bias is not "denigrating" US workers as a whole.

US clothing companies set third world countries against one another as well in the endless race to squeeze every cent out of workers engaged in the garment industry.

A typical sweatshirt (see ITOLDJAH) retailing for $25 in Walmart or at Abercrombie Fitch is commonly produced for approximately $2.45 (labor, fabric, zippers, buttons) or so including shipping. Manufacturers move between Cambodia, Bangladesh, China, Vietnam the Solomons, etc. in order to save a few pennies.

They save a little more not using American labor but paying living wages in any nation producing garments for the good old US of A wouldn't add materially to our final cost of goods.

I read once that the cost of manufacturing Nike's Air Jordan line of sportswear is considerably less than the licensing fees paid to Jordan himself. Is this a great country or what?

I'll try and find the actual quote and I'll try and find an article I read in the past couple of months discussing manufacturing costs vs. living wages.